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The letter of support reads in part:
The struggles among new students at NYU are no doubt taking different forms. You might be struggling with how to meet friends or how to socialize with people who drink when you don't, or how to get involved in something, anything, when time seems so precious, etc. Some of you are wondering if everyone's smarter than you or if you're smart enough to be at NYU. Some of you are stressed with performance anxieties, with being cool. Some of you are just missing a home-cooked meal.
The struggles are real and sometimes hard, but they are normal. They are not a sign of a problem, but just the normal challenges of transitions to a new phase in one's life.
Dismiss any idea that your enrollment at NYU was a fluke. You belong here.
My suggestion: think good thoughts about yourself and others. Relax. And through it all, know that you are where you belong.
The letter is signed by "your neighbor," Mr. Steck.
10 comments:
i KNEW if we waited long enough......
Best thing I've read in ages! Good on the writer!
@945, Best thing you've read in ages?
No one asked "Mr. Steck" and his missive is in excess of 140 characters so it's not likely to be read by anyone attending NYU save the morbidly curious.
It's also obvious he didn't attend NYU unless it was as a hard luck case 40 years ago. The kids attending NYU have not been uprooted from their support systems; people who can afford the $35K+/year cost of admission are not struggling for anything. Money is easily wired these days and parents are just a Skype away. This was written more for Stecky than it was the da kidz.
Unless this is some of the most finely tuned sarcasm ever, get real.
Also, remember to wear sunscreen.
Being kind is a good thing.
10:26am you are an asshole. You know there are a ton of people at NYU who sacrifice a ton to go there, right? Like every college in America there are going to be the rich and entitled, but it's totally unfair to the large number of people that go there that leave homes far away, take out massive loans, and have jobs (yes many do that). Not to mention every person that goes to college to some degree has been uprooted from their support system. By definition that is what leaving home is. Finally, and probably most importantly, messages this like this do nothing to harm you and may actually speak to that kid at college (NYU or elsewhere) that is struggling with the change and pressure associated with college and could be considering something drastic. In case you forgot, NYU had a rash of suicides in the early part of the last decade.
Get off your high horse and stop painting everyone with broad strokes.
Being kind is a good thing. Pffffft. I'll see your "it's nice to be nice" pap and raise you a:
"A man who wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so much that is evil."
What a nice warm letter.
I think it's awesome! And we should do more as a community to welcome everyone. We all came here with a story - rich, poor, happy, sad. These kids do as well. Let's share a neighborhood that's warm and welcoming! They are us, all of us....just maybe a few decades later.
@9:41pm: That's the right attitude!
@10:16am: Don't hurt yourself getting off that high horse you're on. And BTW, I am someone who *did* attend NYU 40+ years ago (via scholarships, student loans & a patchwork of jobs I held while in school). I don't consider myself a "hard luck case;" I just came from a family that didn't have that kind of money, so I worked my rear end off and put myself into student debt to go there.
And even though I was a COMMUTER student, it still was a shock to be on that big, rather "invisible" campus, navigating things on my own. My parents themselves never even finished high school, so yeah, it was a big deal for me!
The "freedom" of being a nobody in a huge university, and stress of that freedom, were both exhausting AND exhilarating at the same time. I'm glad I stepped away from my relatively sheltered neighborhood into the maw of the big anonymous university, b/c I knew I needed that experience to finish growing up.
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